Archive for August, 2010

There is an art and science to getting blog posts to travel like wildfire.

This post will look at both, based on number crunching with 281 posts, 39,000+ comments, and almost 2,000,000 click-throughs via my Twitter profile and Facebook fan page in the last six months.

Here’s what I’ve found to work well… Read More

What do the economics of publishing look like… really? (Photo: thinkpanama)

(Special thanks to my agent, Steve Hanselman, and my anonymous sources within the world’s biggest publishing houses)

Print is dead!

This has become a popular headline, and a great way to get quoted, as Nicholas Negroponte has shown. Iconic author Seth Godin, after 12 bestsellers, just announced that he will no longer pursue traditional publishing, and the writing seems to be on the wall: the e-book is the future, plain and simple.

But what are the real concrete numbers? How are established authors actually making money, and what should new authors do? Go straight to e-book?

In this post, I’ll look at real-world numbers to discuss some hard truths of publishing, explain economics and pay-offs, and provide a few suggestions for aspiring authors.

To start, some contrasting numbers… Read More

Starting tomorrow, travel writer Rolf Potts will embark on a trip that will take him around the world without using a single piece of luggage. This post will explain how he’s going to do it, and there’s a kick-ass giveaway at the end… Read More

It’s time to celebrate! Three years in the making, The 4-Hour Body debuts next Tuesday.

I’m throwing a blow-out party in New York City that evening to thank readers who can attend. I hope to do more parties around the world in the coming months to thank you all. My sincerest gratitude to The King Collective for producing this event and making it gorgeous.

Here are the details — first the basics, then the fun stuff… Read More

This long-overdue episode of Random, filmed at Samovar Tea, includes:

- Book updates and new book recommendations (including Omnivore’s Dilemma and If This Is A Man : The Truce)
- Favorite sites, including design-focused sites
- The new Kindle vs. the iPad — pros and cons.
- Book title hijinks and red herrings
- iFly indoor skydiving video (special thanks to Kent and Travis!)

Find all previous episodes of Random here.

Correction: Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev is credited with the modern Periodic Table of Elements, not Primo Levi, who wrote a book entitled “The Periodic Table.”

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Want to get Random episodes delivered to your iPhone or iPad? Now you can! Just subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or get the audio-only version here).

PLEASE NOTE: THIS PROMOTION IS OVER. THANKS!

Have you ever gone on safari in Africa?
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Crossed the Atlantic on a 119-foot schooner?
Taken a private tour of an Indian archipelago, complete with tigers, crocodiles, and… Miss India?

Now you can. Or… if you simply want thousands of dollars of cutting-edge gadgets, you can have those, too.

Welcome to “The Land Rush,” intended to be the largest book promotion in history… Read More